CREATING JOBS IN AMERICA - Using the Existing Military Infrastructure

CREATING JOBS IN AMERICA – Using the Existing Military Infrastructure

It is too apparent to everyone that jobs are scarce these days. Local ABC news had a promotion for each business to add one job across America. But the majority of businesses are small businesses. According to the SBA small firms represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms. Small firms employ just over half of all private sector. Most cannot afford to add another job which eats into their small remaining recessionary profit. The idea of how to provide jobs for the 14 million people out of work has to be larger.

Much has been made of the money set aside to improve streets and roads. That is a narrow area of job creation. More needs to be done to actually create jobs than send money to the states where it sits for months and months until it finally gets spent.

Remember the WPA? See the Wikipedia explanation below. Created by the government to provide full employment, parks, schools, bridges, and other public structures were built. The program had training, literacy and arts programs. Instead of paying these people unemployment insurance, the government actually created jobs for people to work each day.

The schools are now old and in need of repair, the bridges need reinforcement, the uneducated need training, and not to be overlooked:

Nuclear Plant safety: There has been a list of safety recommendations from a task force that need to be implemented. Then they need to be inspected. In Virginia the 30 year old North Anna plant was built to withstand a 5.9 to 6.1 quake. It shut down after a 5.8 quake, but now the thinking is changing that all plants should be reinforced to a higher standard. The NRC states that 27 plants in the US might face higher risk of a damaging earthquake than previously thought. Also there is a call for new standards for backup power systems to ensure that safety systems continue to operate if a storm or quake knocks out the original system.

These recommendations would employ people of all levels, from construction, to communication, to supervision. And the money would come from unemployment insurance funds as basically outlined in the WPA program of 1935. It took until 1943 to bring the country back to full employment and the WPA to be disbanded. Please read below for a fuller description of how the WPA worked:

Works Progress Administration

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WPA graphic

Typical sign on a WPA project
The Works Progress Administration (renamed during 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects,[1] including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing, and housing. Almost every community in the United States had a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency, which especially benefited rural and Western areas. The budget at the outset of the WPA in 1935 was $1.4 billion a year (about 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP), and in total it spent $13.4 billion.[2] At its peak in 1938 it provided paid jobs for three million unemployed men (and some women), as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA provided almost eight million jobs.[3] Full employment, which emerged as a national goal around 1944, was not the WPA goal. It tried to provide one paid job for all families where the breadwinner suffered long-term unemployment.[4]
The WPA was a national program that operated its own projects in cooperation with state and local governments, which provided 10%-30% of the costs. WPA sometimes took over state and local relief programs that had originated in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) or FERA programs.[5]
Liquidated on June 30, 1943 as a result of low unemployment due to the economic boom of World War Two, the WPA had provided millions of Americans with jobs for 8 years.[6] Most people who needed a job were eligible for at least some of its positions.[7] Hourly wages were typically set to the prevailing wages in each area.[8] However workers could not be paid more than 30 hours a week. Before 1940, there was very little training to teach new skills, to meet the objections of the labor unions.

   The Obama jobs plan is estimated to cost somewhere between $200 billion and $400 billion. Labor Department data shows that from June 2008 to June 2011, nearly $19 billion in state unemployment benefits were paid in error during theses three years. That amount represents more than 10% of the $180 billion in jobless benefits paid nationwide during the period. (See a sortable chart of each states’ overpayments) The tally covers state programs, which offer benefits for up to 26 weeks, from July 2008 to June 2011. Layers of federal programs that help provide benefits for up to 99 weeks weren’t included.    

    Use this money to fund a WPA program......... and repair our country with new jobs. We have 14 million people unemployed and last month the economy has approximately 103,000 new jobs. At that rate it will take over 11 years to get back to full employment.

    USE THE MILITARY INFRASTRUCTURE in place to effect the WPA and get people into jobs across American easily. Unemployment pays their salaries and gets things done instead of having people sit at home. If the military needs more space there is certainly thousands of square feet of commercial buildings vacant. Let's get America working and repaired!!!!